Peanut butter cookies with honey buttercream

Its the weekend, its cold and rainy and I'm feeling a little poorly, so sitting on the sofa and watching telly, craving comfort food (again!). So I had a little ponder in my baking cupboard and was going to just make some peanut butter cookies on their own, then thought it would be much more tastier to make it with a cream filling... hmm, but what? I've read somewhere that peanut butter and honey is the new version of the peanut butter and jelly / syrup combo and they're not wrong. Its quite the match made in a dream baker's heaven. The ever so slight salty crunch of the peanut butter in the biscuit combined with the sweet buttercream makes this sound rather ambiguous, but honestly it works!



Ingredients for the cookies:-

195g butter
115g castor sugar
85g brown sugar
200g crunchy peanut butter
1 egg
1tsp vanilla extract
300g all purpose flour
1/2 tsp bicarb soda
pinch salt

Method:-

Beat the butter, peanut butter, and two sugars with an electric beater until light and fluffy, about 2 to 3 minutes. Add the egg and vanilla and beat to combine.

Add the flour mixture, mixing until incorporated, it helps to use your hands doing this!

Divide the dough in half, wrap in clingfilm and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

After chilling, remove from the fridge, preheat the oven to 170C or gas mark 4.

Line two baking sheets with greaseproof paper.

Break off a piece of the dough using a spoon and using your fingers gently shape the cookies into small rectangles, about 5cm long and 2cm wide. These will spread in the oven and increase in size.

Place on baking trays and using a fork, gently mark the tops of the cookies, to get the line effects.

Place back in the fridge to firm the dough again for a few minutes.

Bake until lightly golden around the edges for between 10-15 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Honey buttercream:-

30g butter
100g icing sugar
1 tblsp honey

Mix together using an electric beater and sandwich the cookies together.

Best enjoyed with a cup of tea!